Brokering Results in the Prevention of Slavery

Commitment by

Verite,
ASSET

In 2009, Verite and ASSET committed to identify good practices to prevent or address slavery in supply chains, pilot these good practices with three visionary companies, and promote public learning from these pilots to the benefit of vulnerable workers (e.g. children, those in slavery, those in forced labor, and victims of trafficking, their communities, and participating enterprises). The commitment will focus on approaches to understand and resolve risk of slavery at the raw material sourcing level, and on reducing the risk of migrant worker forced labor that results from the largely unregulated actions of labor brokers. This will be accomplished by developing verifiable measures of broker performance and disseminating open-source, user-friendly tools by which their actions can be exposed, transformed, and institutionalized. The implementation of these standards and dissemination of these tools will bring transparency to the actions of labor brokers, and allow multinationals, their several tiers of suppliers, NGOs, unions, consumers, and frontline justice advocates to have a common platform from which to reduce slavery.

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Commitment by

Verite,
ASSET

Partner(s)

Humanity United

Details

Verité and ASSET will pilot open-source, user-friendly policies, tools and investigative approaches that companies can adopt to reduce the risk of modern-day slavery in their supply chains. Educate stakeholders and recruit participants to join the pilot efforts. Develop learning materials from the process around the positive outcomes for companies and workers of a strengthened commitment to avoiding and resolving slavery in supply chains. Train frontline advocates for workers on the use of these tools in order to link grassroots groups with the corporate responsibility community and thereby leverage their knowledge. ASSET will further focus on leveraging the results into public support of anti-slavery efforts.

Verité and ASSET will undertake this commitment in several steps:
1. Recruit pilot companies and/or identification of supply chains for focus.
2. a. Map supply chain to sub-tier and raw material suppliers, and documenting labor broker practices and identification of highest areas of risk by geography and sector. b. Prioritize areas for action, and identification of key leverage points in supply chains.
3. a. Adopt policies and protocols at corporate level by at least three multinational companies. b. Extend policies and protocols to suppliers and sub-tier levels, with training and incentive schemes.
4. Monitoring and evaluation: Assess success
5. Engage public audiences to build support for positive action.

This commitment will have the following outcomes:
1. Increase visibility and understanding of the labor broker system and other mechanisms that increase vulnerability to slavery by migrant workers, in manufacturing and raw material sourcing.
2. Enable workers and employers to make better-informed choices when considering broker services
3. Clearly define standards for brokers to create differentiation between "good" and "bad" brokers and between legitimate practices and illegal activity.
4. Create similar standards and benchmarks for other mechanisms of enslavement.
5. Improve ability of stakeholders--including NGOs, labor unions, employers, politicians, policy makers and consumers--to assess and advocate for improvements in broker performance and share information in ways that will reinforce and enhance government monitoring and enforcement.
6. Make "good" broker practices a competitive business advantage by elevating market pressure, from both employers and workers, on labor brokers to abide by industry standards and legal regulations and adopt ethical practices and to reward companies that adopt sound, preventive policies and practices.
7. Define good practices for companies to address risk of slavery throughout their supply chains, with a focus on the sub-tier and raw material sourcing levels.
8. Provide guidance and feedback for policymakers to develop and refine policies and programs for regulation and accreditation of labor brokers and deployment of workers.

Background

Slavery and human trafficking are present in the supply chains of global corporations and their suppliers in diverse business sectors and a wide range of countries. Risks are particularly high when foreign migrant workers are engaged, and where raw materials are produced. Companies of all scales and across sectors--agriculture and manufacturing, extractives and infrastructure--currently face a serious risk of engaging forced labor when they or their supply chain partners hire migrants through brokers. Corporations are increasingly becoming aware that the raw materials that make up their products can frequently be produced or harvested by forced laborers. Workers are particularly at risk when they have taken on debt to finance access to a job. Indeed anytime and anywhere that workers make goods, harvest crops, build buildings, mine minerals, especially foreign migrant workers, they are at risk of becoming enslaved. This is a common risk in developing countries, developed countries, including Europe and the United States.

Within labor brokerage, this risk is particularly prevalent because government regulation of labor brokers is minimal, and monitoring is complaints-based (a flawed premise due to the coercion and the violence inherent with abuses). The role of the business sector to end slavery through reforming labor brokerage practices is untapped, in large measure because of the absence of verifiable performance standards, and tools by which broker performance can be verified. These standards and tools will enable end users, including employers, workers themselves, and workers' advocates, to play a vital role in driving slavery out of supply chains, all the way down to raw materials where problems are particularly prevalent.

This joint commitment between ASSET and Verite will develop, pilot, and advocate for the adoption of tools and practices relating to a range of business practices like hiring via brokers, vulnerabilities like debt-bondage, and sectors involving raw material harvesting. It will generate ways publicly to recognize the positive actions of those companies that take effective steps to address slavery to encourage broader adoption.

Partnership Opportunities

May 2014

Seeking partners/resources

Verité and ASSET continue to seek partners among the multinational community that are committed to understand how their supply chain operations and business partners face risks of forced labor.

Seeking philanthropic support for the policy advocacy and standards setting portion of the program. Seeking private sector partners with whom Verité and ASSET can pilot the standards in supply chains and publicize results. Of particular importance are partners from the electronics, construction/infrastructure and agricultural sectors.

Advocacy and public recognition that supports CEO decisions to demonstrate effective approaches to forced labor and trafficking.

Progress Reports

April 2014

Although the timeline has been extended, this work is on-going and achieving some success. Simply put, while slavery is clearly a tough subject for multinationals, there was greater difficulty than anticipated in getting at least one company to go on record in this effort .

Having said that, there has been some momentum working with companies now in an explicit anti-slavery context. For example, although not under this commitment, Verité has been working effectively with Apple since 2009 to address labor rights in the supply chain. In many ways, this finally happened because of ASSET's work on the California Transparency in Supply Chains Act and Verité's endeavors on the President's Executive Order on Trafficking in Government Procurement. These two policy changes have provided companies the impetus to deal with the issue. Another factor contributing to this change was the Global Business Coalition Against Trafficking's claim that companies which associate themselves with the word 'slavery' can only be praised for doing so, not vilified.